Trans New York
A visually stunning, award-winning photography book of transgender New Yorkers, complete with thought-provoking and revealing interviews that honor the transgender community and the courage it takes to find oneself and defy societal norms.
A growing portion of the LGBTQ+ community identifies as transgender; they are family members, friends, neighbors, and colleagues, and yet they are all-too-often stigmatized and misunderstood. This visual tour de force presents exquisite portraits of more than fifty New Yorkers who identify as trans, genderqueer, or gender nonbinary, and interviews with them in which they reveal who they are and what their transitions were like and combat common misconceptions and stereotypes.
The vibrant, honest photographs were taken on the streets of New York or in iconic places like Grand Central Station, and together the photos and interviews provoke questions on gender identity, the gender spectrum, and gender expectations. In total, this is an unparalleled articulation of the expressions of sexuality, gender, and self that New York, in all of its beauty, honesty, and compassion, welcomes, as well as a celebration of the power of finding oneself and a compelling call for respect and acceptance.
In addition to enlightening text from more than fifty members of New York’s trans community and the author, award-winning documentary photographer Peter Bussian, there are inspiring longer essays and an extraordinary foreword by the celebrated trans activist Abby Chava Stein. Trans New York is the winner of a prestigious International Photography Award (IPA) for its superb images.
Peter Bussian is an award-winning documentary photographer, filmmaker, and creative consultant who has spent more than twenty years working in developing countries for organizations such as the United Nations, the United States Agency for International Development, the Department for International Development (UK), and nongovernmental organizations. Since 2001, he has spent the equivalent of nearly five years in Afghanistan, traveling there over a fifteen-year period, and he has worked in other post-conflict countries in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, often collaborating with local artists and media creators. His photographs have been published by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Condé Nast Traveler, O, The Oprah Magazine, Paris Match, El Palacio, and elsewhere, and exhibited in domestic and international galleries. Bussian has also created documentary films and written narrative screenplays. His photography book Passage to Afghanistan was published in 2016. Bussian spent most of his childhood in Colorado and has lived in New York City for the past twenty-five years.
Abby Stein is an educator, speaker, and trans activist. She was raised male in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn, New York, and her family is a direct descendent of Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism. In her Hasidic community, she attended Yeshiva, completing a rabbinical degree in 2011. In 2012, she left the Hasidic world to explore different worldviews, and in 2015 she came out as a woman of trans experience. Since coming out, she’s been working to raise awareness and support people going through a similar experience. Her story has been covered by the New York Times, New York Post, New York magazine, Jewish Daily Forward, Daily Mail, NBC, and many other outlets, and she’s appeared on media such as Fox News, CNN, HuffPost Live, and ShowTime. She’s also the author of Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman. In 2016 Stein was named by the Jewish Week as one of the “36 Under 36” young Jews who are affecting change in the world. She is currently a student at Columbia University, studying women’s and gender studies and political science. She lives in New York, NY.